Paul Poulton comments

Paul Poulton

Not too long ago the Daily Mail ran a story on the healing of an American paraplegic singer named Delia Knox. The article was positive and called the healing a miracle, they also said something about it being a British man named Nathan Morris who prayed for Delia. The YouTube video on which you can see Delia get out of her wheel chair has had close to 400,000 hits.

I know here in the UK we can be a sceptical lot when we put our minds to it; we don't like to be sucked into scams and we think of ourselves as being level-headed, and all that is well and good. However there are occasions when the proverbial baby is thrown out with the metaphorical bath-water. When I read the article in the on-line edition of the Daily Mail, I noticed there were quite a few comments written by other people who had read the article and watched the accompanying video. Most of the comments I read were cynical and some were bordering on nastiness. The 'best rated' comment was from Susan in Oldham which said "Anyone who is 'paralysed' for so many years would suffer severe muscle atrophy and would simply not be able to stand up and walk. After getting the feeling back in her lower body, she would have to do months and months of physiotherapy before she could walk." Susan's comment had 1066 people approving it. Other comments ran along similar sceptical lines. Tony from the UK said rather sadly, "Oh dear, I guess I must be a non-believer".

It is true that Delia had lost all feeling in her legs after being hit by a drink-driver 23 years ago. If nerves are unable to send signals to muscles then those muscles will be unable to move. Muscles that don't move begin to atrophy, being a regular runner I know that it only takes 2 or 3 weeks of inactivity for muscles to start to lose their power, so after 23 years there would be severe muscle wastage. On this point I am in agreement with Susan from Oldham, but the flaw in her comment is put rather neatly by Jesus himself when he said, "You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God."

Let me put it like this, who admires that parent that buys their child a present for Christmas that looks absolutely fabulous with its many moving parts, but the parent fails to buy the batteries needed to power the toy? What use is that? The scriptures that Oldham's Susan seems to be unaware of tell us that our Father in heaven knows how to give good gifts to his children. When I was small my dad would tell me we were all going to Blackpool on holiday for a week. I didn't know where Blackpool was or how to get there or where to stay when we got there but my dad did. I didn't have to give it a second thought, he worked it all out before hand and we had some lovely holidays as a result. When we pray for someone's healing we don't have to have medical knowledge, we don't have to explain to God how to heal a person step by step, but what we do need is what Tony from the UK is missing - belief. Without faith it is impossible to please God, but with faith all things are possible.

When the apostle Paul was talking to the doubting Corinthians about the resurrection he said, "Some of you may ask, 'how are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?'" Paul was not happy with their immature questions and said the sceptical Corinthians were being foolish. I wonder what he would say to the cynics of the present day UK, maybe he would say in the words attributed to the one time British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Denis Healy, stop being such silly billys. Jesus said to Doubting Thomas, "Stop doubting and believe". Of course God takes into account atrophied muscles when he is healing the nerves that run to those muscles. He's the great designer and he doesn't let things slip his mind. He won't give us toys with batteries not included.